April, 2011 Archives

In 1983, the Polish authorities, planning an official observance of the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, invited Marek Edelman to join the honorary sponsoring committee. Edelman, a member of the Jewish Socialist Bund since his youth, had been the deputy commandant in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The only one of his comrades, Bundists and Zionists, still remaining in Poland. For the last 30 years he has been a physician in Lodz. He had never joined the Communist Party and never lent his name in support of the regime. Nor was he daunted, in 1983, by the government’s effort to co-opt him for its official observance. He rejected the invitation and distributed his statement as an open letter:

“40 years ago we fought not only for our lives, but for life in dignity and freedom. To observe our anniversary here, where enslavement and humiliation are now the lot of the entire society, where words and gestures have become nothing but lies, would betray the spirit of our struggle. It would mean participating in something totally the opposite. It would be an act of cynicism and contempt.

I shall not be a party to this, nor can I condone the participation of others, regardless of where they come from and whom they speak for.

The true memory of the victims and heroes, of the eternal human striving for truth and freedom, will be preserved in the silence of graves and hearts, are far from manipulated commemorations. (“Poles, Jews and History” by Prof. Lucy S. Dawidowicz)”

In September 1939, the Wicked Ones came to Bendin, surrounded the Jewish quarter and the synagogue in its midst, and set fire to the synagogue and the houses adjacent to it. Any Jew who try to escape from one of the houses was shot. And yet, even as the flames engulfed the synagogue, a number of Jews rushed into it, led by a certain Schlesinger, his son, and his sons in law. They fought their way to the Aron Kodesh, and every one of them succeeded in rescuing two Torah scrolls, one in each arm. When they emerged from the burning synagogue they were all shocked by the Wicked Ones. Thus they died al Kiddush Hashem.

A second story concerns an incident in the city of Piotrkow, where a carful of Nazi officers arrived one day, headed straight for the synagogue, dragged out some 30 Torah scrolls, and dumped them into an open yard, leaving guards on 24 hour duty, lest some Jew “steal” them. After some days, a certain Bundist leader by the name of Abraham Weisshof couldn’t stand the site anymore, so he collected some other Bundists, and by night they crept into the yard and one by one absconded with the Torah scrolls and buried them in the Jewish cemetery. (Mr Weisshof was not a religious Jew. He had in the past prided himself on seeing the Torah as no more than fancy parchment. But he and his men risked torture and death to honor the Sifrei Torah.)

In Radzymin, also in Poland, there lived a Hasid named Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Kaminer. [A complicated story follows, typical of the Nazi ways of amusing themselves by torturing a helpless victim.] Then they forced him to dress up in his shtreimel, tallis, and Tefillin, took him to the town square, shoved him next to a Christian cross erected there, and ordered him to kiss it. When he refused to obey, the policemen threatened that they would not simply shoot him, that they would beat him to death. Kaminer remained unmoved. Then they fell upon him like wild beasts and beat him until they thought he was dead. After the Nazis were through with him and had left, several Jews ran to Kaminer, who was lying on the ground, and lo, he was still barely alive. Quickly they carried him to his apartment and rushed for a doctor, and they managed to save his life. (Simon Huberband – Kiddush Hashem)

Jacob was tough and muscular. His nose had been crooked since his childhood, he had been kicked while helping to shoe a horse. That was when he was 10, his job was to hold up the back legs, he stood just behind the horse. Then his mother came out and saw him standing there – he was the apple of her eye –and she shouted to the men, “No, Jacob mustn’t lift the hooves, it’s dangerous!” And he abruptly straightened up to say that he was indeed not too small to give the blacksmith a hand, and the horse didn’t like that and ever since then his nose had been crooked and he had a red mark just under his right eye.

So begins “The Stump–Grubber,” by the Swedish author, Torgny Lindgren. Jacob Lundmark carried the mark of his mother’s love for the rest of his life.

At the end of the story, Jacob has been working for 18 hours straight with the stump grubber to remove a stump that bothers his wife, Gerda. He couldn’t stop. He was almost there. He had lost all feeling in his hands. And just then, just when it was all nearly over, Gerda came out onto the porch and she called with all the strength she had in her body, “Dearest love Jacob! You must be careful!”

And that call, that was the most wonderful thing Jacob had been sensible of in the whole of his life, it was so inexpressibly warm and trembling, and so permeated with concern and love that he halted halfway through the winch, her call had made him quite weak and dazed, he felt that he must see her, and he turned his head and the upper part of his body so that she would perhaps be in sight, but he still held on to the winch, and he could really see her, she was standing in the porch and in her left hand she held the little girl and in her right hand the doll, and the evening sun lit her up from the side so he could see how her eyes were wide open with anxiety and fondness. No human being could seem more heavenly.

And she called to him once more, “Dearest love! Jacob! You must be careful!”

At that moment the last roots broke, they gave way suddenly, and the stump, which was now hanging free, tipped over and swung around as if it were possessed by a frightful fit of rage, and Jacob was quite helpless, and all he could hear was his wife’s voice within him, and the thickest root of the stump gave him a horrible blow and killed him.

The man scarred so early in life by love ends up being killed by love.

In 1974, I accompanied my Rebbi on a visit to the home of a Holocaust survivor. We knocked at the door, the man answered, looked at my Rebbi and said, “Are you a Rabbi?” “Yes,” said Rabbi Zweig. “Tell me,” said the man, “do you say the prayer “Ata vichartanu, ahavta otanu,” You have chosen us, You love us? “Of course,” said Rabbi Zweig.

The man shook his fist at the heavens and said, “Why do You kill us with Your love?”

He slammed the door shut in our faces. Rabbi Zweig and I slowly walked away from the house in a heavy silence. He did not say a word until we returned to the yeshiva. He turned off the engine, turned to me, and I saw tears dripping from his eyes. “I don’t know how to answer such a question.”

People during the Holocaust were so desperate for a kind word, a smile, an expression of humanity, that they were willing to believe anyone who offered some warmth:

“They pushed us into the mirrored room and my feet stumbled on my uncle’s books, the paintings were all cut up. It was half dark and behind a table was the commandant, to the right of the smashed-up piano. . . . The commandant was good and he had a smile. A true and proper process would be conducted; all a formality. He asked to be hugely forgiven, and said that we would be interrogated one at a time, after which he would let us go right away. (Lorenza Mazzetti, Il Cielo Cade, The Sky Is Falling)”

We live in a world in which people know to use love as a weapon, to win our trust and affection before turning on us. We love approval and approbation, and are deeply wounded by criticism. “We love you,” says the world, even as they try to impose their will on Israel. They are killing us with their “love.” No wonder we look at God and ask, “Why do You kill us with Your love?”

My prayer this Yom Hashoah is that we experience the intensity of God’s love with blessings, joy, security, and life. May we never again have to ask that unanswerable question.

Why do I honor Yom Hashoah as a separate day, rather than only include it as part of Tish B’Av? Because it is more real and immediate for me. I share the following as an explanation:

The significance of pictures – the way in which an image that is, essentially, entertainment for one person can unexpectedly be profoundly emotional, even traumatic for another – is the subject of one of the most famous passages in all of classical literature. In Vergil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, a poem not without significance for survivors of cataclysmic annihilations, the hero, Aeneas, is a young Trojan prince, one of the few survivors of the destruction of Troy. His city destroyed, his civilization in ruins, virtually all of his friends and relatives murdered, Aeneas travels the world seeking a place to settle and begin again. That place would, eventually, be Rome, the city that he founds; but before the traumatized Aeneas gets to Rome, he stops first at a city called Carthage, in North Africa, which was itself founded by a hunted, desperate exile; a woman called Dido, with whom Aeneas will soon fall in love and, later abandoned, breaking her heart. When Aeneas and a companion first arrived in the bustling new town, they stroll around admiring its newly erected buildings and monuments. Suddenly, in a magnificent new Temple, the two men stopped dead in their tracks in front of a mural that is decorated with pictures of the Trojan War. For the Carthaginians, the war is just a decorative motif, something to adorn the walls of their new temple; for Aeneas, of course, it means much more, and as he stands looking at this picture, which is a picture of his life, he bursts into tears and honors it tormented line of Latin that would become so famous, so much a part of the fabric of Western civilization, that it turns up, really, everywhere . What Aeneas says, as he looks at the worst moment of his life decorating the wall of a shrine in a city of people who do not know him and had no part in the war that destroyed his family and his city, is this: sunt lacrimae rerum, “There are tears in things.” (“The Lost” by Daniel Mendelsohn, pp 182-183, Harper Collins)

We hear Six Million. We speak of Auschwitz. We cannot comprehend all the suffering. It is important for us to hear the individual stories, to mark each one, to pay our respects. The Holocaust cannot be observed only as part of the long history of Tisha B’Av; it must have a day of its own so we remember that each of the Six Million stories matters.

I often wonder how the biblical prophets would have addressed Israel during the Holocaust. 20 years ago I taught a series on, “Isaiah and the Holocaust.” This year I have been reading some verses in the book of Joel, spoken in a time of terrible suffering, and would like to consider whether these words could have been spoken during the Holocaust.

“But even now, the word of God, return to Me with your whole mind, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Rend your inner disposition and not just your clothes, then return to God, your Lord; for merciful and compassionate is He, patient and abundantly loyal, repenting about punishment. Perhaps He will turn and relent, leaving a blessing in His wake, a cereal offering and libation for God, your Lord (Joel 2:12–14).”

Joel speaks to the people in the face of reported horrible facts: first, a devastating invasion by locusts that consumed the vegetation and threatened the survival of people and animals; second, the ominous nearness of “The Day of God.” God uses the locus to wreak havoc like invincible soldiers. This invasion is a harbinger of an army that will inaugurate the dreaded “Day of God” amid other heavenly portents and awesome signs. Both threats directed against the people originated by God, Whose fury freely poured itself out. How then dare the prophet appeal to the very One bent on punishing His possession?

Joel shares God’s promise of an outpouring of Divine vitality on the people, disposing them to conduct themselves righteously. Then God will move to settle the score with traditional enemies of Israel and to sit in judgment on all nations before acting to secure His sacred precincts and once again taking up residence in Zion. Joel attributes to God the control of rain (Verse 23), and thus nature’s productivity. God is Master of history and nature.

Could the people hear Joel’s description of God even while convinced that they were suffering at His Hand? Could they connect the realities of their lives to the prophet’s descriptions of God? Were the people able to believe the promises offered by Joel in the name of God?

I find it fascinating that in these verses, the prophet does not at any point describe the people as culpable or guilty. He did not say to them that they had caused their own suffering.

Joel cries out, “Have pity, God, upon Your people, let not Your heritage be an object of scorn, for nations to dominate them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ (Verse 17)”

It seems clear that Joel is speaking here as advocate for his people. I believe that his intention was not only to have them here a prophet of God advocate for them, or to hear promises of healing, but to speak to them during their suffering in no way they would remember when all would be better. The famine did miraculously end. The people did have food. At that point they could think back and remember prophet of God who advocated for them. They could remember that he never criticized them during their suffering. They would remember that he was the one who continued to offer a vision of hope during the worst of times. Joel was speaking for the future. He was speaking for the people who would survive the calamities. He was offering them lessons they could use when they recovered.

Joel planted seeds of a relationship with God that would be able to take root, blossom, and grow, only in the future. He did not see his role as comforter. There were no words of comfort possible. He connected to them as their advocate. He spoke to them of their future. Joel was laying the groundwork for what would happen next.

While many leaders of the Jewish people commiserated with them as they suffered the Holocaust, fewer stood up as their advocates, and far fewer saw far enough into the future to plant the same kind of seeds planted by Joel. How could they while suffering the ravages of the concentration camps? A prophet has a different perspective. Would it have worked? I have no idea. But perhaps we can learn from Joel how to speak with people who are suffering: no mention of guilt, advocating for them with God, and planting soft and gentle seeds with a hint that the suffering will end and the future will be better.

Teresa is a waitress in a coffee shop in Delaware. She is a fabulous waitress with an outgoing personality She knows what her regular customers usually order, and their soup or salad are at their table a minute after they sit down. Teresa has her own section of the coffee shop.

But what makes Teresa different is the community she creates in her section. Most of the people who come in are retired. Many of them have lost their spouse and eat alone. She introduces these people to each other and encourages them to sit at the same table for dinner. My father was one of those people.

One day she pointed to another man sitting alone and said to my father, “That’s Ray. Do you want to meet him?” “No,” said my father. A couple of days later she said to Ray,” That’s Sam. Would you like to meet him?” No,” he answered.

But Teresa was persistent, and one day she seated Ray with my father. Ray was 28 years younger, a divorced man with stomach problems. My father was a widower. But that night they sat and chatted. And they began eating together. My father and Ray formed a very close friendship. I met Ray a couple of months after their introduction, when I was visiting my father.

The next four years, Ray and Sam had dinner every evening. My father did not drive at night, so Ray would travel 20 miles to pick him up and take him to the coffee shop.

There were many such stories in Teresa’s section. People who were alone no longer dined alone. It was a community.

My father passed away five years ago, but I have kept in contact with Teresa. During one phone call, she told me a customer had ordered a $35 meal and left her a two dollar tip. I was incensed. But she told me not to be upset because we do not know what was in his pocket. I was puzzled, and asked her what she meant. She told me the extra three or four dollar tip might have been the difference between buying, or not buying, the meal he wanted.

I was amazed at her attitude, and asked her where she had picked up this philosophy. Teresa answered, “A few years ago, two old ladies came in to have dinner. I heard them discussing what they wanted to share, and realized they did not have enough money for each one to buy a meal. They were trying to decide what they would split. I went to a table of my regulars and said, ‘It just breaks my heart. Those ladies cannot afford separate dinners.’ The customers looked at each other, and then told me they would pay for two steak dinners for the old ladies. When I told them, they started crying and were very appreciative.”

If you look at a map of the state of Delaware, you will not find a dot and next to it the word Teresaville. But you and I know there is such a place, a caring community created by a catalyst of kindness, named Teresa.

“Paradise is not of this world and those who set out to look for it or to construct it here are irremediably condemned to failure (“Traces of Gauguin” – Mario Vargas Llosa)

How could I not read Vargas Llosa’s “Piedra de Toque,” or Touchstone? First of all, “Touchstone” is too similar to Foundation Stone to resist. What is more important is, that since marrying a certain Argentine, I have discovered Latin writers; Llosa, Borges, Saramago, Fuentes, Zafon and more, and have been fascinated by their perspective on good and evil and the struggle to develop a more just society. In their mutual contempt for authoritarianism, they automatically identify with the weak, accept that the Palestinians are “weaker” than the Israelis, and use their intellectual heft to criticize Israel no matter what she does. The irony is that these thinkers share a vision with Israel: A world in which the weak fight back by building a more moral world. These writers are torn between their vision of victims rising, not in rebellion, but with moral conviction and their visceral hatred of anyone who has more power than the other. Their anger wins. The hatred is more powerful than the vision. Israel is wrong.

That, is the great moral victory of Israel: Her commitment to perfecting the world always wins against her suspicion, fear, and hatred of a world that tortured her people for thousands of years. She still believes in her vision of a better world, and continues to examine herself to find ways to be more just. The world assumes that Israel wants to avoid the unceasing criticism of the media, NGOs, intellectuals and the UN, but, it is not so; Israel wants to be able to look in the mirror and see that she continues to reflect the same vision of a better world.

We are charged with a commandment, “Kedoshim tihyu!” Be Holy! We can debate, study and examine what it means to be holy, but take a people, just three years after the Holocaust, that does not feed off its anger, but its vision; Is that not holy?

Take a nation that has fought numerous wars for its existence and still does not choose anger over moral vision; is that not holy?

Take a country that is committed to its vision of justice even as she fights people firing thousands of missiles into her, and does not use the violence of battle to spew anger; is that not holy?

Look at a country that knows that no matter what she does will be condemned for its lack of humanity by countries that are murdering their own citizens, that continues to live its vision without resentment and hatred: Is that not holy?

I grew up in a community that ignored Yom Hashoa because it is also v’haGevurah; a day of Power, the day of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and they infer that there is an implicit criticism of those who did not fight back, who “went as lambs to the slaughter.” We can debate that point. But what if the Gevurah/Power celebrated is not the fighting back, but the Power that feeds us with a vision of justice and right; the power that allows our vision to constantly overcome resentment and hatred? Is that Gevurah/Power a criticism, or a celebration of what makes us holy?

Is Israel “holy” in the classical sense? I am not qualified to judge. Certainly things that contradict ‘holiness’ are common. It is surely not Paradise.

Is Israel holy in its vision? I have no doubt. Is Israel holy in her constant commitment to always have her vision overpower the resentments and fears? No question. That Power is the greatest honor of the memory of the strong and the weak who died at the hands of the Germans.

“God is a Master of war (Exodus 15:3).” God is not like a King of flesh and blood, for the flesh and blood enters war with many soldiers, and when he goes to make peace, brings just a few with him. God, however, when He goes to war, goes alone, “God is a Master of war,” and when He goes for peace, brings tens of thousands with Him, as the verse says, “The Lord’s entourage is twice ten thousand, thousands of angels; My Master is among them, at Sinai in holiness (Psalms 68:18).” (Sifrei, Beha’alotecha 102:25)

This paragraph of Hallel as Shirah is a celebration of the Haggadah theme: “I, and not an Angel. I and not a Seraph. I, and not an agent. I am He, and there is no other!” Pesach allows us to experience the individual relationship each has with God; that we can turn directly to Him in times of trouble, and that He directly responds, Himself, and not through an agent. This is the source of our Protection, Salvation, and Success. This is the sense we will have when we dance around His Altar in the Beit Hamikdash.

“This is my Lord and I will glorify Him.” Rabbi Yossi says, this means that, “I will speak of the beauty and praises of the One, Who spoke and brought the world into being, before all the nations of the world.”

Rabbi Akiva says, this means, “I will speak of the prophecies and praises of the One, Who spoke and brought the world into being, before all the nations of the world.” For the nations of the world ask Israel, “What is your beloved more than another beloved (Song of Songs 5:9)” that you are willing to die for Him? “You, Israel, are beautiful. You are mighty. Come and join us!” Israel responds to the nations and says, “Let us share just some of His praises.” When the nations hear just the beginning of God’s praises, they say, “Allow us to join you in praising Him!” But Israel responds, “My Beloved is to me, and I am His (6:1),” our relationship is unique and cannot be shared.” (Mechiltah, Beshalach)

The theme of this paragraph of Hallel as Shirah is to share some of the praises of God, inspiring all the nations of the world to join us in praising Him.

Review the new insights into God that you have been granted over Pesach and consider how you can present them to others so that they will desire to sing with you.

The Sages say, “This is my Lord and I will glorify Him,” “v-anveihu,” should be read, “alvenhu,” I will escort Him, until I enter His Temple with Him. This can be compared to a King who journeyed across the sea, and his son accompanied him. The King then traveled to another country, and his son insisted on accompanying him. So too, when Israel went down into Egypt, the Divine Presence went down with them, as the verse says, “I will go down to Egypt with you (Genesis 46:4).” When they ascended from Egypt, the Divine Presence accompanied them, as the verse says, “I will go up with you.” Israel went down into the Sea and the Divine Presence went down with them, as the verse says, “And the Angel of the Lord traveled (Exodus 14:19).”They exited the Sea into the desert and the Divine Presence was with them, as the verse says, “And God moved before them (13:21).” Until they brought Him with them to the Temple, as the verse says, “Scarce had I passed from them, when I found him whom my soul loves: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me (Song of Songs 3:4).” (Mechiltah, Beshalach)

This midrash is describing the people as bringing the Divine Presence with them; not that She accompanied them! The people sensed that the brought the Divine Presence with them, and they committed themselves to always bring Her with them until they could bring Her to Her Home.

We sing this paragraph of Hallel as Shirah with a clear sense that wherever we are we bring the Divine Presence with us, until we can bring Her to the Beit Hamikdash and thank God for all He has done to give us such protection, power, blessing and independence.

Sing this paragraph after reviewing moments from Pesach and the past year when we sensed God’s Presence in our lives.

Sing this paragraph as a commitment to create an environment for God’s Presence to remain close until we can accompany Her to the Beit Hamikdash.

“What can I respond to God for all the good He has given to make me independent?

I will lift up the cup of salvation and I will call out in God’s Name.

I will fulfill my promises to God in front of all His nation.

Death to His pious ones is precious in God’s eyes.

Please God, allow me to be Your servant.

I am Your worker, the son of Your maidservant,

You unlocked my chains.

I will bring an offering of thanks to You, and I will call out in the Name of God.